Christelle Taraud, a French historian and feminist, is a member of the Centre for 19th Century History at Paris 1/Paris 4 – Sorbonne University. Specializing in gender and sexualities in colonial spaces, she is the editor of Féminicides. Une histoire mondiale (“Feminicides. A world history”, La Découverte, 2022).
The term feminicide is now widely used. How is it defined? According to Christelle Taraud, feminicide is defined as “the execution of a woman because she is a woman”. The concept dates back to 1976 when feminist activists and researchers from around the world gathered in Brussels for the first International Tribunal on Crimes against Women. Diana E. H. Russell, a sociologist from South Africa living in the United States, is credited with the concept of “femicide”, which involves killing a woman because of her gender.
Taraud explains that while not all murders of women are femicides, the patriarchal dimension is crucial in determining feminicide. She emphasizes that feminicide is not simply an individual hate crime, but a part of a larger system of oppression against women. The term feminicide was coined in Mexico in response to the mass disappearances and killings of women in a border region characterized by extreme forms of capitalism and violence.
Marcela Lagarde y de los Ríos, a Mexican anthropologist and politician, introduced the term feminicide to describe the collective, mass, and state-sanctioned nature of violence against women in Mexico. She highlighted the genocidal tendencies of feminicide, linking it to necropolitics and overkill as part of a systematic politics of death imposed on women by the state.
Taraud notes that the concept of feminicide varies across different regions, with some countries in Europe using the term to describe femicide without acknowledging its genocidal nature. She stresses the importance of understanding the systemic nature of feminicide through the concept of the “feminicide continuum”, which encompasses all forms of violence against women.
In order to address feminicide, Taraud argues that structural inequalities and impunity must be confronted. She emphasizes that feminicide does not occur in isolation, but is part of a continuum of violence against women perpetuated by societal norms and institutions that enable and normalize such violence. Taraud calls for a collective awareness and action to dismantle the patriarchal systems that perpetuate feminicide.
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